Contributing to Rust — community building

Help newbies, spread the word, meet interesting people. Make Rust the
shining example of open source development that we all want it to be.

Keep an eye on the #rust-beginners channel. This is where we direct
new Rust programmers to ask for help, and it is vital when they do
that they receive prompt, accurate, and courteous responses. Likewise,
Stack Overflow, users.rust-lang.org, and /r/rust, are all forums
where Rust programmers commonly look for assistance. If you want
training on answering programmers’ questions read this
guide.

If you are already experienced in some area of the project, please
look out for potential E-easy bugs. When you see an
easy issue on the bug tracker that you know how to fix, write up a
description of the fix and tag it with E-easy. Note that what is
obvious to you is not obvious to a new Rust contributor, and its
important to describe the problem and the solution clearly. It is
thus also helpful to triage E-easy bugs for poor descrptions and
improve them.

Experienced developers who are patient and communicate clearly should
consider mentoring new contributors. Tag easy issues with
E-mentor and mention in a comment that you will mentor. Expect people
to contact you about the issue, and attempt to respond promptly.

Maintaining entry-level tasks is good not only for The Rust Project
itself but all projects. If your project has a consistent supply of
entry-level tasks you might institute such a program
yourself. Curating entry-level tasks is one of the most effective
methods of bringing new programmers into the project. If you want
training on mentoring new contributors read this
guide.

Talk about what you are working on in the weekly “what’s everyone
working on this week” threads on /r/rust and users.rust-lang.org,
and indicate what you need help with. These are great starting points
for collaboration.

Advocate Rust in your own local community. Rust user groups and events
are a unique and exciting part of the Rust experience: there are so
many, and they are everywhere! If you haven’t been yet, go and enjoy
new experiences. If there is nothing Rusty going on near you then
consider organizing something. You can poll for interest and announce
events on /r/rust or users.rust-lang.org. Contact the community
team to put events on the calendar, and thus be announced on This
Week in Rust.

Remember as you are advocating Rust though to be considerate of
others’ views — not everybody is going to be receptive to Rust, and
that’s just fine.